


too much space between

by lissaline



Series: Rib cage [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Aftermath, F/F, Getting Together, Jessica is fine, Karen is fine, Slice of Life, they're just two people being super fine together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 04:08:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17052833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lissaline/pseuds/lissaline
Summary: She knew this wasn’t a good cycle to get into, she did. But it wasn’t like it was every day. She was allowed to have an off day, wasn’t she? So what if an off day sometimes turned into an off weekend, or very rarely an off week.





	too much space between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide andibeth82!! Thank you for the wonderful prompt, I hope this is the kind of thing you were looking for! I hope you're having an excellent holiday season :)

Jessica woke up at ten am to her phone buzzing incessantly. She didn’t bother looking at the screen; only one person called her these days and she didn’t feel like talking to Trish just then. Or anyone for that matter. She fumbled on the screen with her eyes closed for a minute, before giving it up as a bad job and just shoving the phone off her nightstand. It clattered against the floor and went silent. She went back to sleep.

When she woke up again, the sun was low in the sky, just beginning to turn the horizon dusky purple. She tried to close her eyes again, but her body seemed to have decided that she had slept enough. Or at least that she needed to pee.

On the plus side, it was a reasonable time to get a drink now.

She knew this wasn’t a good cycle to get into, she did. But it wasn’t like it was every day. She was allowed to have an off day, wasn’t she? So what if an off day sometimes turned into an off weekend, or very rarely an off week. Strange hours, irregular work, it was the nature of her job.

And look at her now: brushing her teeth, putting on clothes, leaving the house. She took a picture of the outside of her front door and sent it to Trish.

 **It doesn’t count if you’re just going to the bar**. Trish texted back immediately. Jessica shoved her phone in her pocket. Whatever.

She determinedly did not speed up as she passed Malcolm’s door. She didn’t care if she saw him or not, anyways. The day before she had fired him – again – and this time it really seemed to have stuck, if his absence that morning was any indication. Which – good. Finally.

_Oh come on, even you aren’t that obtuse, asshole._

Okay fine, maybe she didn’t really want to fire Malcolm. It wasn’t like she had even hired him in the first place though. Jesus christ, she needed a drink.

Lately she had been going to this dive that kind of reminded her of Luke’s old place, all vintage wood and neon signs. The drinks were cheap, and the lady behind the bar kept her judgmental looks to a minimum.

Said lady gave her a curt nod as Jessica threw herself onto a stool near the end of the bar, and slid a shot of whiskey towards her.

 Jessica was about three drinks in when a familiar voice made her look up.

“Come on, just give me a clue!”

“Foggy, you’re the enemy now, I can’t just tell you my sources.”

The pair were talking animatedly as they walked through the door, brushing snow off their shoulders. The lawyer – Foggy, what a weird ass name – waved happily to the bartender.

“Hey Jose, you don’t think I’m the enemy, do you?”

The bartender smiled, something Jessica had never seen her do before, and rolled her eyes as she handed Foggy two beers.

“Of course I do, you’re yuppy scum.”

“Can’t go anywhere.” Foggy shook his head. Him and blondie sat down at a table nearby. Jessica swiveled her barstool a little so they wouldn’t be able to see her face. They probably wouldn’t remember her, but just in case. She had no interest in talking about Murdock, or anything that had happened.

Not that it seemed like they wanted to dwell on the past anyways. They seemed happy enough.

And why shouldn’t they be? Just because Jessica couldn’t move on, doesn’t mean everyone should be miserable.

Jessica decided she didn’t like this line of thinking, and gestured for another shot.

It was about an hour and an indeterminate number of drinks later when Jessica saw Foggy get up out of the corner of her eye.

He murmured something Jessica couldn’t hear to blondie, and leaned in for a sideways hug. Blondie smiled, rolled her eyes, and said “I’m _fine_ Fog, get the hell out of here.”

A blast of cold air swirled around the bar when he opened the door, and then he was gone. With a bit of a jolt, Jessica looked around and realized that her and blondie were the last people in the place. What time was it? Trish was going to be pissed if she found out she closed out the bar again.

“It’s Jessica, right?”

Jessica jumped, and then immediately cursed herself. _Way to play it cool_.

“Um..”

“Sorry,” blondie said, holding her hands out in front of her, as if she was approaching a frightened animal. “I know you probably don’t want to be bothered. I just…how are you?”

Jessica looked at her for a moment. She looked drunk, but probably not as drunk as Jessica herself looked. Her hair caught the neon lights of the sign behind the bar, glowing red around the edges.

“I’m great,” she said flatly. Jesus, she really didn’t mean to come off as such a bitch all the time. She couldn’t help that it was her default setting.

But blondie didn’t look offended, she just gave a little laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.” She paused, then, “You remember me, right? I’m Karen. Matt’s…”

“Yeah, I remember you,” Jessica cut her off before she could continue. Karen nodded, and neither of them said anything for a while.

Fuck it.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Karen started, as if she had forgotten that she wasn’t alone. Then her lips twitched up in a smile.

“Whiskey.”

“Good choice.”

They didn’t talk very much as they sipped their drinks, there didn’t seem to be much to say. Truthfully, Jessica thought, it was nice just to be with someone who was there, who understood and who didn’t want to talk about it either.

Jessica stared, a little mesmerized, at the way Karen’s throat moved when she threw back the last drops of her drink. Shit, maybe she was drunker than she thought.

“Last call, ladies,” the bartender called from where she was picking up glasses beside the pool table.

“Shit,” Karen said. “Sorry Josie, I didn’t realize it was that late. I should really get going.”

Jessica tried to school her face into a suitably surprised expression, one that hopefully conveyed that she didn’t routinely stay at bars until closing time, and said, “Oh, yeah. Me too.”

Snow was just starting to fall in thick flakes when they stepped outside. Jessica was squinting through the snow, looking for a cab, when Karen’s hands fisted in the front her jacket and her mouth pushed against hers. Jessica made an embarrassing sound of surprise, before recovering and pulling at Karen’s hips to bring her closer. Karen’s mouth tasted like smoke and whiskey, and as Jessica went to pull away, she nipped at her bottom lip.

They went to Jessica’s apartment. When they stumbled through the door, Karen looks around for a moment. Jessica watched her eyes widen, taking in the wreckage, the empty whiskey bottle on its side on the desk. But then she turned back to Jessica and pushed her up against the door, so she figured it didn’t bother her too much.

It had been a while since Jessica had been with a girl. Between taking pictures of cheating assholes and trying to drink her memories away, there wasn’t much time for dating, or even for casual sex. It was easy though, as easy as it ever was, to nip on Karen’s soft lip and then duck her head to suck a cruel bruise into her neck. Karen fisted her hands in Jessica’s hair in retaliation, making a low sound in her throat.

“Where’s your bedroom?”

They somehow lost their clothes on the way, and Jessica was kissing her way down to Karen’s belly button when she gasped above her and rasped, “Wait.”

Jessica sat up, breathing hard. Karen’s hair was a blonde halo on the pillow, and goosebumps were standing up on her pale skin. Maybe they should get under the blankets. Jessica tore her eyes away from Karen’s pebbling nipples, realizing she was saying something to her.

“Huh? Sorry.”

“I said I wanted to do you first.”

Jessica stared at her for a second and then laughed. Karen’s chin was jutted out and her eyes were hard, the face of a woman who knew how to get her way.

“You can do me after.”

“But…”

Jessica leaned down so her body pressed against Karen’s, and she put her lips next to her ear to whisper, “I’ve been wanting to taste you all night. Can I?”

Karen’s legs came up to wrap tightly around Jessica’s middle, and she felt wet skin glance against her belly. She shivered.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

Karen moaned a little when Jessica parted her folds with two of her fingers. She was wet, so wet that her skin glistened and a little droplet of slick slid down from her hole to the sheets.

“Fuck.” Jessica said concisely, and then she put her mouth to better use.

Karen was as loud as Jessica hoped she would be. Her legs wrapped vice like around her shoulders and she felt her thighs give little quivers when her tongue swiped against her just right. She tried to do it again and again, wanting to see how much she could make her shake.

She lifted her head, to see Karen’s hands fisted in the sheets, her head thrown back on the pillow.

“Do you like having something inside you?”

“Fuck, fucking…what?”

“Do you want me to finger you?”

“Jesus Christ, yes!”

Jessica had a sudden flash of Karen turning into the lawyer’s arms, muttering the same oath because she knew she would never see her friend again. She swallowed hard and got back to the task at hand.

She put one finger in slowly, testing the give of Karen’s flesh. She was feverish inside, soft as silk and molten hot. She clenched around Jessica’s finger and she moved it around, feeling her out.

“More, please, Jessica, _God_.”

Two fingers seemed to fit even better, and she rotated them, curling them up a little and feeling for that little puckered spot. Karen jerked when she found it, and she rubbed against it gently, sucking hard on her clit.

Karen went silent when she was close, just fisting her hand into Jessica’s hair and canting her hips up a little. Then she let out a long breath, and her walls clenched tightly around Jessica’s fingers, and Jessica glanced up to watch the muscles of her abdomen bunching and relaxing. She kept her mouth on her clit, kept massaging her inside, until Karen keened highly and gently pushed her head away.

Jessica smiled and moved up to her breasts, sucking a nipple into her mouth and reveling in the way Karen tugged on her hair.

“ _Ah_ …Jessica…”

“Mm?”

Karen’s long fingers glided down Jessica’s belly to dip into her where she was hot and soaked through.

“M’not gonna last long,” Jessica gasped, her lips going slack around Karen’s nipple.

Karen moaned and pushed two fingers inside of her right away, making Jessica gasp and shudder. She rubbed her clit fast, pressing hard and unyielding. Jessica pushed back against her, trying to fuck herself on her fingers, before moving up to bite a kiss into her mouth.

“ _Harder_.”

They sprawled beside each other when they were done, and Jessica was asleep within minutes, lulled by the steady, soft breathing next to her.

Jessica woke with a start at the sound of someone moving around in her kitchen, and before she knew what she was doing, she was standing beside her bed, heart beating in her throat and ready for a fight. Then she remembered the night before, and thanked god Karen wasn’t there to see her paranoid freak out.

Karen took a second to turn around after Jessica walked into the kitchen, even though she must have heard her. When she does, she has two cups of coffee in her hands and a too bright smile pasted on her face.

“Morning!” Karen’s voice was a little too high to be normal, and she thrust one of the cups of coffee towards Jessica. “I hope you don’t mind I rifled through your cupboards a little, I just really needed some coffee. I haven’t been this hungover in a while.”

Jessica took the proffered coffee, and tried to smile at Karen like she wasn’t disappointed.

“Blondie. Don’t freak out, okay? It’s fine if you want to forget this happened, I get it.”

“No!” Karen said, loudly, and then winced. She continued in a quieter tone, “It’s not that, I’m sorry I’m just. I’m weird in the mornings.”

Jessica looked at her for a moment, pretty confident she wasn’t telling the truth, but unsure whether she was in a position to pry. Finally, she shrugged. “You want something to eat? I have…toast.”

“Toast would be great.”

They ate sitting beside each other on the couch, mostly in silence. Jessica hated this. She wasn’t usually awkward like this. Normally if there was an uncomfortable silence, it was because she engineered it. Now she was just desperately trying to remember how small talk worked.

It turned out she didn’t have to worry, because Karen said, “So.” Her voice was hoarse, and she cleared her throat. “So…I….You were there, right?”

It took Jessica a moment to figure out what she was talking about, and when she did, her stomach dropped through the floor.

“Yeah.” She said, hoping her tone made it clear that she didn’t want to talk about it. It seemed to work, because there was silence again. Jessica took a chance and glanced over at Karen, and realized with horror that she was crying, tears running silently down her face. She noticed Jessica looking at her, and swiped at her cheeks with rough hands.

“Fuck, sorry. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”

Jessica didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She shouldn’t have left her apartment last night.

“I just. I didn’t get to say goodbye, you know?”

Karen sounded so empty, so lost. Jessica wished that she could be the person Karen needed just then, someone who understood what she was going through. Someone who had something comforting to offer, some kind of knowledge that would make this shitshow seem better. She wasn’t that person though, so instead she just put her hand on Karen’s shoulder blade and said “I’m sorry” like an asshole.

“No, god. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t put this on you. Thank you for last night, really. I…I’ll see you around?”

Karen smiled, but it wasn’t exactly convincing when her eyes were rimmed with red and there were tears still drying on her cheeks.

Jessica looked at the door for a long time after it closed behind Karen. Then she laid in her bed and looked at the ceiling instead.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing she knew, she was waking up to the obnoxiously loud ringing of her phone. Before she could think about it, she reached over and answered.

“What, Trish.”

Someone who was definitely not Trish cleared their throat. Then a ghost said, “Um. Jessica? Jessica Jones? It’s Matt Murdock.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”


End file.
